SERGEI PROKOFIEV: CANTATA FOR THE 20TH
ANNIVERSARY OF THE OCTOBER REVOLUTION

If your paradigm for Soviet music of the 1930s is
Shostakovich – and that’s probably a mistake –
then one searches Prokofiev’s cantata in vain for
any hint of tonal or programmatic ambiguity. And
yet there was considerable disagreement over the
composer’s use of texts by the Bolshevik founding
fathers (setting
Lenin to music? unthinkable!) and his adoption of
‘futurist’ sound
effects (which were known to be anathema to the
late leader). The
result was that despite Molotov’s urging that the
final score should be
leftto the composer’s discretion, the cantata was
rejected for public
performance. It was recorded last August as part
of the Kunstfest Weimar, which seeks to explore east-west
materials in a reunited
Germany. The huge score is stirring, unashamedly
affirmative but so
dramatically delivered that it is easy to forget
how negative and inhumane was the regime it was affirming. A model
live recording from
the Weimarhalle, which always has good sound.